SOME PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF CHOCOLATE-SEEDS.--VALUE OF CHOCOLATE AS
AN ARTICLE OF FOOD.
The seeds of plants contain a germ, or embryo, together with a certain
amount of food. As soon as the germ sprouts, the food, or a good part
of it, is consumed by the seedling, being used by it in the formation
of new parts, such as roots and leaves by which the materials for more
food can be obtained from the soil and air. Now it happens that the
food of plants is pretty much the same as the food of animals, although
there is this marked difference in the manner of procuring it: plants
can construct their own food from inorganic or mineral matters taken
from the earth and atmosphere, while animals, even those which are most
like plants, must have their supply of food from organic nature.
Since, then, plants prepare the food which animals are to use (of
course flesh-eating animals use their plants, so to speak, at
second-hand), it comes to pass very naturally that the food in a good
many seeds has been recognized from early times as very useful food
for man. Thus the cereals--wheat, maize, oats, barley, and rice--are
the seeds of grasses; and there are many other seeds, such as beans,
peas, buckwheat, and so on, which have been appropriated as food by man
from remote antiquity. But the seeds of some plants are unfit for human
food, owing to disagreeable properties which they possess; while there
are a few which stand on the very edge of the limit of foods, and have
been used in time of scarcity.
The seeds of at least two plants are used as important adjuncts to
our list of foods, and can be enumerated among foods without any
impropriety. These are coffee and cocoa. They contain nutritive
properties,--the latter in very much higher degree than the
former,--and they possess also peculiar constituents which entitle them
to rank as luxuries. These peculiar constituents are (1) flavoring
matters, and (2) an active principle. But, either from its constitution
or from its association in the seed, the active principle of coffee,
although it has nearly or quite the same ultimate composition as the
active principle of cocoa, is unlike it in its effects. The active
principle of cocoa is substantially free, as used in its preparations,
from any undesirable effects on the nervous system. This active
principle of cocoa is _Theobromine_.
The essentials of a perfect food are (1) a certain amount of
carbohydrates, (2) of albuminoids, and (3) certain mineral matters,
these latter being substantially the same in all seeds used as
food. In cocoa these three groups are combined in proper proportion
to constitute a complete food, but there is superadded the active
principle, _Theobromine_, which places it at once in the class of
luxuries as well as of necessary foods.
When cocoa-seeds are prepared properly for food, without doing violence
to the chemical relations of the different components, a comforting
nutritive article of the highest value is obtained. This ideal method
of preparation is not a chemical torturing by the addition of foreign
ingredients, as in the alkali process, but it consists in the complete
unlocking, by perfectly natural, mechanical means, of all the virtues
of the seeds. We do not try to render the albuminoids of wheat and
other grains soluble by means of ammonia, soda, or potash, nor do we
think it desirable to increase the solubility of the albuminoids of
egg and meat by adding caustic or carbonated alkalies to them before
they are used. And yet chemical processes analogous to these have been
devised and are sometimes used with regard to cocoa. In most cases
these added substances are detected in the increased amount of mineral
matters found in the ash after burning the preparation. The amount of
ash in pure cocoa is about four per cent. Any appreciable amount above
this may be attributed to the admixture of mineral matters used in the
preparation.
The oil in pure chocolate-seeds is about fifty per cent of the whole
weight. Although the oil is exceedingly bland and free from rancidity,
it has been found expedient in some cases to withdraw a part of this
oil, leaving a smaller amount in the product. This is the method
pursued in the manufacture of the powdered cocoas. With this reduction
in the quantity of oil, the resultant beverage is less likely to
disagree with delicate digestion.
It is in all cases of the first importance to obtain only pure cocoa of
the highest quality, free from any admixture of foreign matter, such as
the alkalies or their carbonates; and further, the product ought to be
of the greatest degree of fineness. With regard to the flavors added
to chocolate, it is perhaps needless to say that they should be of the
utmost degree of purity. This is especially true of vanilla, which
owing to its high cost is frequently replaced by artificial flavors.
There is, in one respect, a notable difference between sweet chocolate
and cocoa: the former may be flavored, the latter should never be. A
pure cocoa must be absolutely dependent on its own delicious, natural
odor and flavor. No addition of any substance of any kind is admissible.
SUGGESTIONS
RELATIVE TO
THE COOKING OF CHOCOLATE AND COCOA.